Recommendation 4.1.2 Versions and other aspects of a document
New standards released
The New Zealand Web Standards 2.0 were released in March 2009 and replace the previous version, the New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0 (below). See Meeting the standards for more information.
The Recommendation
Recommendation 4.1.2 Versions and other aspects of a document
Additional information required for the user to make an informed choice about downloading or accessing a document.
Guide to this recommendation
If a user requires a particular version and/or any other aspect of the document in order to:
- download the document, and/or
- access the document
the user should be informed of this, in order to make a decision about whether to download. The version and/or other aspect of the document should additionally be provided, if this is applicable.
For example, the document could be annotated with the information: [MSWord 6.0/95 or later, 15MB]
Any third party objects (and their versions) that are necessary for accessing the document should also be presented to the user alongside the document
i.e. Zip 2.3 in the case of a compressed document.
Related Standard
4.1 - Document size and type with document links
Related Recommendation
4.1.1 - Information for users to select their documents to their preference
4.1.3 - Compression of large files or collections of small files
Rationale for this recommendation
When downloadable objects such as documents, program executables and multimedia files are presented for download, users need to know if the object downloaded is going to be accessible and usable to them. Information provided not only about the document type but also the version of that type, may result in the user deciding to avoid download due to not having the necessary tools/software on hand to access the document.
